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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779414">my whole expanse i cannot see</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean'>getmean</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>sunbeams are never made like me [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Pacific (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Nonbinary Character, Other, gender euphoria</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:02:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779414</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dissonance isn’t a new feeling to him, even before he started messing around with femininity. One of the side effects of not being completely at home in the gender God gave you is that at random, inexplicable times, you face your reflection and you don’t recognise what you see.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>sunbeams are never made like me [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>my whole expanse i cannot see</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this was a prompt by an anon on tumblr. thank you for leaving it, and i hope it doesn't disappoint :~~) it's also a sequel, and should kinda stand alone, but might make more sense if you read the one that comes before it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Merriell was a kid, he had this little brown dog that loved nothing more than to get into the laundry basket, and chew the underwear inside to rags. It was one of those dogs of indeterminate breed; brown, small, round around the middle from how his grandmama liked to feed it from the table. You’d think all the tidbits would be enough. Corners of sandwiches; whole dangling forkfuls of spaghetti and red sauce; the choice part of meat from the chicken’s thigh. But no, the thing would go right for the laundry, and tear it all the shreds. It’s where Merriell gets his proclivity towards wearing no underwear, probably. That’s what he used to tell guys in the past; shocked to unbutton his pants to find skin and hair lurking right behind the fly, as though he’d jumped a step in their clumsy stripping of him. <i>My dog ate my underwear.</i> Ha ha. Nobody really laughed at the joke, besides Eugene. That’s how you know you’ve found the one, Merriell thinks. </p><p>But that dog — name of Snowy, after Tintin’s dog, despite his brown coat — used to get the guiltiest look on its little face whenever it got caught in the act. Or when Merriell’s mama found the underwear and brandished it at the dog, asking him <i>did you do this? Was this you?</i> As if anybody else in the house would’ve torn up dirty underwear with their teeth. </p><p>It was the kinda guilt that looks comical and out of place on a dog’s face; downcast, shifty eyes, a nervous curl to its lip. Facing Eugene now, the two of them stood together in their apartment’s bright kitchen, Merriell’s reminded of that dog. Its funny little guilty face that always made its underwear-chewing something charming and cute. Eugene’s guilt is similarly charming, though a little more mysterious. If you saw Snowy acting strange, you knew you were about to find his stash of chewed-up briefs. Eugene, however, doesn’t have anything to be guilty for — as far as Merriell knows.</p><p>“What did you do?” he asks, immediately, turning away to unload his pockets onto the console by the front door. Keys, change, his lighter. He’s fresh from work, and smelling like it too; sweat and gasoline, his hands still black from it. When he moves past Eugene to wash his hands, Eugene is frowning at him, his disbelief so over-exaggerated that Merriell can’t help but laugh.</p><p>“Nothin’. Why’d you ask?” </p><p>Merriell grins into the sink, pressing his chin to his shoulder to peer at Eugene as he soaps his hands up. “You look guiltier then a whore in church.”</p><p>Eugene rolls his eyes, hard. Still grinning, Merriell turns back to the sink, scrubbing his dirty nails under the stream of water in there. Once he’s done, he shuts the faucet off and turns to face Eugene, grinning.</p><p>His hands are twisting together in front of his belly. The wider Merriell’s smile gets, the redder Eugene’s ears are, until finally he slumps and casts his eyes skyward, and mutters, “I might’ve bought something for you.” </p><p>Things have been different between them since Eugene had come home to find Merriell in his mother’s old slip, a face full of makeup. They’re softer with each other. More open, more trusting. Eugene knows him and understands him now in ways nobody else ever has. That’s enough to bond you together for life. It means that this having-something-kept-from-him barely fazes Merriell now. It once would’ve. His truth coming out has smoothed over a lot of little ripples in their relationship that Merriell really had never noticed before, and certainly didn’t realise had anything to do with…all of <i>that</i>.</p><p>“What is it?” Merriell asks, playfully, as he leans forward to catch at Eugene’s nervous hands. He lets himself be caught and dragged close to Merriell easily, hands giving up their anxious twist in favour of tangling up in Merriell’s instead. </p><p>“You stink,” Eugene mutters, but kisses him anyway. Pinned between Eugene’s body and the sink, Merriell lets himself slump; lets the tension of the day drain from him. Out there he’s something different to what he is when that front door closes. But it always takes a moment of adjustment. Like when you come in from the cold, and your fingers start tingling and burning as they warm back up. </p><p>Eugene’s hands find Merriell’s waist. His nose nudges at the skin behind his ear. Very deliberately, Merriell whispers, “Tell me what you bought.”</p><p>They’re not broke, but they’re not exactly all the way comfortable. It must’ve been something expensive, for Eugene to have that dog-like look of guilt on his face; an expression that returns when he leans back from their embrace. His sweet, broad mouth is pressed into an uncertain flat line. Merriell smiles, and presses his thumb to the corner of it. Eugene’s fingers pluck absently in the back of his work overalls. </p><p>“Maybe it’s easier if I show you,” he mutters. “It’s, uh — I got off work early.”</p><p>“Okay,” Merriell says, slowly, still grinning. “Lead the way, then.”</p><p>He thinks he knows what it is, as he follows Eugene’s broad-shouldered figure through the apartment. It’s that perfect time of the day where the sun isn’t quite set, but it isn’t quite dark enough yet to turn all the lights on. It means the light is grainy and pale purple; dimmer and bluer in the windowless hallway, and gold in the bedroom, with its big West-facing windows. Eugene is painted over all soft in its light; sweetly nervous as he stops Merriell in the doorway with his hands on both his shoulders.</p><p>“Don’t be mad at me,” he says, his face very serious. Merriell bites at the inside of his mouth, fighting the urge to laugh.</p><p>“No promises.”</p><p>Eugene is stood directly in a spear of light thrown through the half-closed blinds. It turns his deep brown eyes amber; the colour of whiskey, or dark honey. He probes at Merriell’s face for a moment more with them, and relents with a sigh. </p><p>“Fine,” he mutters. “Figures. Close your eyes.”</p><p>Merriell presses his lips together, trying to keep his amusement in check. “Really?”</p><p>Eugene squeezes his shoulders. “Really.”</p><p>So Merriell closes his eyes. Tracks Eugene’s path from the doorway to the corner of the bedroom by the soft sound of his bare feet on the wooden floors. The creaky board by his side of the bed, the groaning sound the floor makes near the wardrobe, where the roof had leaked through one bad winter. The room smells like Merriell’s perfume, and like Eugene, their scents mingled together into something homey and pleasant. Sometimes, Merriell can smell it on himself when he’s at work. Under the stink of sweat and diesel; that thin thread of home. Of who he is behind closed doors. Last night they had sat together in a pool of lamplight and drank red wine until they were pink-cheeked and handsy. Merriell had swiped deep red lipstick onto Eugene’s obedient mouth. Together, they’d laughed at how pale it made him look, and then Merriell had gotten to work trying to kiss it off him. </p><p>The sound of a long zipper tears the comfortable silence. And Merriell snorts, eyes still squeezed shut so tight that his eyelids are making fireworks for him. His suspicions were correct. Really, there’s no way Eugene can pull one over on him. He expects Eugene’s been trying to get him into something small and lacy for a while. When he opens his eyes it’ll be lingerie, it’ll be a floaty little thing more silk and nylon and frothy lace than clothing. Or a slip; sleek and sexy, soft against his bare skin. He likes how feminine things like that make him feel; likes how it turns the hard, masculine planes of him into something soft and not-quite-there —</p><p>“Open your eyes,” Eugene murmurs. </p><p>Merriell opens them, the sly, flirtatious comment he’d been forming in his head dying in an instant as he takes in the dress hanging from the open wardrobe door. Eugene next to it, looking both nervous and eager, rubbing at the back of his neck as he mutters, “I guessed your size, but you’re slight so I —”</p><p>“Jesus,” Merriell says, breathlessly. He drifts further into the room, drawn by the dress as if beckoned. The sunlight passes over him; a brief, warm touch to his nape. “Gene, what the hell were you thinkin’?”</p><p>“Huh,” Eugene says, and huffs. “Guess I wasn’t.” And then, “D’you like it?” </p><p>“It’s beautiful,” Merriell breathes, stopping a foot away from the dress, hanging demurely in the late evening sunlight. Deep, heavy cobalt blue velvet; it catches the light beautifully, near swallows it whole. Nipped at the waist, the collar demure and off the shoulder. Graceful and sleek and deadly expensive. “Where’d you find it?” he asks, fingers hovering an inch from the gathered velvet at the waist. And in the same breath, he adds, “We can’t keep this.”</p><p>“I walk past it every day on my way home from work,” Eugene says, as if Merriell hadn’t spoken. “In this shop window on Union Square. And I always think, ‘Merriell would look incredible in that’.” He stops, and shrugs, a hopeless smile on his face. “Wanna see if my gut was right.”</p><p>Merriell reaches out a hand; touches his fingers to Eugene’s own. He’s not a man who’s good with words, or with feelings. He just hopes that Eugene can see the way the gift makes him feel, just by looking at him. Eugene’s fingers curl around Merriell’s. Together, they look once more to the dress; eyes drawn to it like it’s some fantastic, beautiful creature in the room. Stealing the light, stealing all the air. </p><p>“Okay,” Merriell mutters, as if it’s a great hardship. “But I dunno if it’s gonna fit.”</p><p>He’s not a big man by any stretch of the imagination; has stayed thin despite Eugene’s continued attempts to fatten him up. His waist is narrow, his hips narrower still. But there’s a great gulf of difference between swanning around in his mama’s loose, floaty slips, and <i>this</i>. Even just lifting it from the hanger, Merriell can feel the weight of all that rich velvet. He holds it in his hands, probing the boning at the waist, and says, “I’m gonna shower. Wash my hair. If we gotta return this —”</p><p>“Best not stinkin’ like a garage,” Eugene says, and Merriell snorts. </p><p>So he showers, quickly, thoughts of the dress on his mind as he lathers shampoo through his hair, which is still growing long and wild. Eugene is a fuzzy shape beyond the white shower curtain; perched on the sink and smoking, telling Merriell all about the experience of walking into the store and buying it. </p><p>“So I tell the girl, ‘I don’t know my wife’s size’. And she kinda straightens up and says, ‘is she bigger, or smaller, then me?’ She’s this little thing. So I say bigger —”</p><p>“Thanks,” Merriell deadpans, raising his voice over the rush of water from the shower head. He grins when Eugene laughs, tipping his face into the spray to rinse the shampoo from his hairline. </p><p>“Well she was pretty pleased by it. And she’s asking me if my wife is a bigger lady, if my wife has a big bust —” By now, they’re both laughing. “So I say no, my wife is flat-chested…”</p><p>It’s a pretty good story. And as funny as it is to hear Eugene bumbling his way through trying to buy a woman’s dress for Merriell’s frame, it also fills Merriell up with such a warm feeling that he finds he can’t wipe the smile off his face, when he emerges from the water. </p><p>Eugene is there with a towel ready for him; grinning, his hair fluffy from the small, steamy room. Merriell steps into it, and lets Eugene rub at his skin, and pat at his hair, all the while recounting the hour or so of abject anxiety he’d suffered through while waiting for Merriell to come home from work. </p><p>“I was sure you’d either be mad at me or you’d love it.”</p><p>Merriell rolls his eyes. “Jury’s still out.”</p><p>He halfway knows he’s gonna keep it, already. Even if he and Eugene have to eat bread and eggs for the next month. He’s never owned something so beautiful, not something that was all his. As a kid he’d shared everything with his brothers; clothes were fifth generation hand-me-downs by the time they got to him. Patched, worn, and mended; overlarge and threadbare and worn buttery soft and thin. Of course, it never mattered, but you don’t half get attached to things that are all yours once you’re grown. </p><p>But this dress is different than anything else he owns and loves. Maybe it’s because it feels very tenuously his at the moment. Or maybe it’s because it’s something just so different to anything else he has. This dress was bought for him by Eugene, simply because he’d seen it once and thought of Merriell every time after that. And it’s gorgeous. It’s feminine. Merriell’s clothes are normally comfortable, and old; utilitarian. Chore jackets and boots, plain cotton t-shirts and jeans. Monochromatic, masculine, designed for a purpose over pleasure. </p><p>But that dress is all pleasure. Merriell feels it, when he’s weighing it in his hands again; taking it from the hanger to lay it flat across his and Eugene’s bed. The skirts, they whisper across the floorboards. Made for nothing but looking pretty. So ridiculous and showy that he can’t even think of where anybody would wear it. And there’s something just so pleasing about that. From his hand-me-downs to the uniform he wore during the war, to the navy-white-black-grey wardrobe he cycles through on days he’s not wrapped up sweating in a boiler suit…Merriell’s never really had much space for frivolity. </p><p>He supposes it’s never really too late to try.</p><p>Eugene goes away to fix them both a drink in the kitchen, while Merriell dries his hair in the bathroom, and then does his face in the bedroom. Lipstick, kohl, dark mascara to weigh his lashes down. When he’s got makeup on, Merriell feels as though he has to hold his neck very carefully; his back very straight. Over-aware of his mouth, of his eyes, of the flush to his cheeks. It’s a posture he recognises from childhood, from his long vigils at his mama’s vanity, watching her make herself up for the day. At some point, the posture smoothes out. The eyelids turn heavy and pleased. It’s beauty, he supposes; settling over him like a fine cloud. The person in the mirror is him, but not him at the same time. It’s Merriell-at-home. It’s Merriell-between-worlds. He grins at it. The reflection returns the smile. </p><p>Eugene comes back, and touches cold fingers to Merriell’s warm nape. Standing behind him so that the mirror takes them both in; his fingers trailing delicately over Merriell’s bare shoulders. “You look lovely,” he says, softly. If Merriell has never quite gotten used to see himself like this, Eugene certainly hasn’t. He gets the same look on his face every time. Starstruck, dreamy, and dumb. </p><p>Merriell tilts his head back, and Eugene leans down for a kiss as if drawn by some outside force. When he comes away, there’s lipstick smudged on his mouth. Merriell smears at it with his thumb.</p><p>He’s brought with him whiskey in a squat glass, and gin in a tall, narrow one. As Merriell watches, a string of bubbles escape up through the tonic, and attach to the slice of lime in there. Ice; three cubes. It explains the cold hands. </p><p>“You always know what I want,” Merriell says, wonderingly, as he takes a sip from it.</p><p>Eugene gathers Merriell’s hair in his hands, twisting the curls into a thick braid as he murmurs, “You always want the same, when you’re all prettied up.” </p><p>That sinks an arrow of warmth right into Merriell’s heart. He hands Eugene an elastic, and watches him finish the braid in the mirror, wondering what exactly he’d done in his life to deserve this kind of understanding and love. </p><p>The light has all but disappeared, by the time Merriell steps into the dress. Wobbling on one foot, one hand on the bed frame until he’s standing in it, and then Eugene is helping him pull it up over his thighs, and over his hips. The fabric makes a hushed sound as it skates over his bare legs, soft and rich against his skin. </p><p>“Jesus,” Merriell says, not for the first time. “We can’t keep this.”</p><p>Eugene makes a non-committal noise. But then the boning is settling against Merriell’s waist, and he’s sliding his arms through the sleeves, and he kinda forgets to argue the point. It’s tight, in a very pleasant way — the same kind of way that he finds the heaviness of his makeup pleasing. Again, he finds his spine straightening, his shoulders going back, his breathing adjusting for the sudden pressure at his waist; a pressure that only increases when Eugene zips him up. It’s not bad. Just like a big pair of hands holding him firmly in place. It’s comforting, in a strange way.</p><p>“Well,” Eugene murmurs. “It zipped.”</p><p>Merriell lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. The boning at his waist holds him up, helpful little hands. </p><p>“How’s it feel?” Eugene asks, his hands creeping around Merriell’s new, tiny waist. His nose nudges against Merriell’s ear, just as he squeezes at him. “It fits you like a glove.”</p><p>“Guess that girl knew a thing or two about big, flat-chested wives,” Merriell murmurs, and steps away from Eugene’s hands. The skirts sway against his calves, the dress almost having a life of its own as he turns, and it swings with him. The expensive, well-made weight of it. Merriell’s heart is throbbing in his throat; forced there by the rigid structure of the bodice. His chest swells; no place to go, and Merriell imagines breasts, suddenly aches viciously for breasts —</p><p>And catches sight of himself in the long mirror set into the wardrobe door. The air, all that he could fit into his lungs, whooshes out of him as though he’d been punched. </p><p>Dissonance isn’t a new feeling to him, even before he started messing around with femininity. One of the side effects of not being completely at home in the gender God gave you is that at random, inexplicable times, you face your reflection and you don’t recognise what you see. Merriell’s lost himself in taxi cab windows, in hub caps, in the brief glimpse of himself in the mirror by the front door. He sees man, he sees man-trying-too-hard-to-be-man, he sees ugly-woman and woman-trying-to-be-a-man-trying-to-be-a-woman. Sometimes he sees nothing; just some dark-haired entity he knows is him but feels no connection with; no warmth towards.</p><p>This dissonance is different, because it rights itself almost immediately. One moment Merriell is staring at a slight, dark-haired woman, at the deep blue dress fitted to her body, catching the lamplight with every tiny movement. Then he blinks, and the figure of that woman is himself; so startlingly <i>him</i> that he takes a full step towards the mirror, as if to see better. And the dress moves with him, the skirts swaying and settling around his legs, their touch magnifying the whole experience and making it all the more real. That body in the mirror is his own. Carrying the dress so well; the fullness of skirt contrasting sharply and gracefully with the flatness of his chest, the boniness of his clavicle. Again, his ribs try to expand, to heave in a deep breath at the overwhelming feeling of recognising himself in the mirror. And the boning at the waist stays them; holds them in; keeps him pressed firmly and comfortably together.</p><p>When Eugene eases this off him later, Merriell feels as though he’ll probably melt to shapeless mush. The ridges of the boning will be imprinted into the skin of his waist.</p><p>The silence is stretching. Merriell knows it, though he can’t do anything to break it. He’s too hypnotised by his reflection, too full up of some nameless emotion he can’t quite look at head on. In the mirror, behind him, Eugene’s eyes are fixed on him. An expression on his face so adoring and so gentle that Merriell knows that Eugene thinks he can’t see him. It’s the unfettered emotion of someone who believes they’re unwatched. </p><p>Merriell smoothes his hands over the skirts. Feels his narrow hips underneath; concealed by the thick, full fabric. “Shit,” he says, eloquently; because he’s still him, even under all this velvet and rouge. “I don’t know what to say.”</p><p>“You look better in it than I even thought you would,” Eugene whispers, and then he’s coming closer again, propping his chin on Merriell’s shoulder so he can gaze at them both in the mirror. His hands snake around Merriell’s middle, and Merriell feels a lurch in his stomach as he sees how easily Eugene’s big, gentle hands circle his newly-small waist. “Do you like it?” he asks, oblivious to Merriell’s distraction.</p><p>Tongue feeling thick and clumsy, Merriell murmurs, “I love it,” and turns to the side, examining himself at every angle. Eugene watches with satisfaction written all across his face. It doesn’t even budge when Merriell says, a second later, “Gene, where will I even wear this?”</p><p>It feels a waste to let it sit in its dust bag. And with that thought comes a moment of sinking unsureness. Merriell’s hands smooth over his front; over the dip of the waistband, the gathered velvet at his hips, up to the graceful neckline. This is a far cry from dressing in a slip, or swanning around the house in lipstick. Even further than wearing one of his mama’s old silk scarves in his hair outside, or kohl smudged into his lashes for a date out with Eugene. This is unrepentantly him dressing as a woman. This is Flo’s wedding dress, times one thousand. This is a deliberate step in a new direction; to wear something made to be seen. Made to be worn outside, to be consumed by jealous female eyes, to be complimented and swished around a dance floor. </p><p>He’s plucking nervously at the skirt. Eugene touches the back of Merriell’s hand, softly. “Right here is good enough for now,” he murmurs. “Just with me.” He smiles, and Merriell turns from his reflection, into Eugene’s chest. “I guess I’m possessive like that.”</p><p>“You ain’t possessive,” Merriell mumbles, edging his finger through a gap in Eugene’s button-up. Then he sighs, and turns back to his reflection, hand coming up to free his hair from the braid Eugene had worked it into. With his hair loose, Merriell feels a little more like himself. The soft black cloud of his curls. His dark-lashed eyes peer from it. </p><p>This is a deliberate step in a new direction, but hadn’t lipstick once been a huge step too? Everything is new at some point, just as everything gets old, and comfortable, worn-in like a pair of favourite slippers. </p><p>They shift to the kitchen, where Merriell drinks another gin and tonic, pressed up against the kitchen counter with Eugene nudged up against his side, making them both sandwiches. Merriell eats half only to chase away the drunkenness that comes from an empty stomach, and then has another gin and tonic which refreshes it. He feels hazy, dreamy, dopey. A smile tugging at his mouth that he can’t wipe away. It’s only half to do with the alcohol. The rest is the dress, it’s the way Eugene’s eyes settle on his collarbones, on his bare shoulders, on the curve of his waist. Merriell’s hair is long enough now to settle between his shoulder blades, and that’s another little pleasure. Slowly, very slowly, he’s becoming the person he always wanted to be when he was sixteen and angry at everything, most of all himself. But it’s so easy to be angry when you don’t understand. </p><p>Eugene pours himself another drink. The night has closed in cool and distant beyond the windows; pooling in the hallway, in the abandoned bedroom. In the main room of the apartment, Eugene lights a couple table lamps, bathes the room in their warm yellow glow, and bathes himself in it too. The windows turn to mirrors, though Merriell knows that if anyone were to look up they’d be able to see him and Eugene clear as day. He wonders what that stranger would make of the scene. Would they be shocked? Confused? Or maybe they would simply think, <i>that woman is far too dressed up for a Friday night in.</i></p><p>Merriell rests his glass to his chest as as he watches Eugene cross the room towards him; the cold condensation on the outside like a steadying hand. His chest hair peeks over the delicate dropped neckline, and that in itself is something pleasing. Hasn’t he always wanted to be undefinable? </p><p>“Dance?” Eugene asks, softly. His hand extends into the air between them. Merriell feels a smile quirk his lips, and he glances between it and Eugene’s open, earnest face. The radio is playing softly in the background, tuned to something slow and tender. It makes his heart stir behind his bodice. </p><p>“You’ve got two left feet,” he murmurs, and drains his glass before setting it aside.</p><p>“Nobody to see us,” Eugene says.  </p><p>When Merriell takes Eugene’s hand, its startlingly warm against his own; made cool from clutching at his gin. Together, they sway together across the old, creaky floorboards; bare feet padding, the skirts of Merriell’s dress swishing against his calves. Eugene holds him delicately at his waist, his other hand tangled up in Merriell’s as they waltz slowly, clumsily. And he whispers to him; a soft drag to his voice that tells of his long day, of his tipsiness from the whiskey. <i>You’re stunning. It’s like it was made for you. It makes your eyes look incredible.</i></p><p>At his throat, Eugene smells like he always does; like newsprint and cigarettes, and his soap. Merriell closes his eyes. He lays his head on Eugene’s shoulder; feels Eugene press his nose to the crown of his head. His face feels hot, all the way up to his ears, all the way down to his chest. He and Eugene turning and swaying together in some shiny little soap bubble of happiness. </p><p>He feels beautiful. He feels whole. </p><p>“We’re not gonna be returning the dress,” he murmurs, firmly, and smiles at the rumble of Eugene’s laughter in his ear.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! the dress eugene buys is based loosely off the classic 1950s dior silhouette... but trust and believe he could not afford dior LMAO</p></blockquote></div></div>
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